Farewell To A Friend
by elfmaiden4legs
Summary: ****This is basically set end of Season 1, after Jack's death and the Doctor's feelings of grief! What goes through the Time Lords mind just before Rose shows up to defeat the Dalek's and bring Jack back? Heavy on the angst!


Farewell To A Friend

The Doctor stood silently for a moment, consumed by grief, and in mourning… he felt the lump begin to form in his throat, but he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of seeing him cry!

He'd known the kind of fate that Jack would have endured – the pain like ten-thousand volts of electricity shooting through his body, pain like Jack was unlikely to have ever felt the likes of before… but still Jack hadn't given them the satisfaction either… the satisfaction of seeing him suffer, in what he must have realised were his last few moments of life, not a whimper of his inevitable distress.

He'd been brave, braver than himself the Doctor thought, who'd sent one companion to his death, and the other home because he couldn't bare the prospect of losing her to. Jack however had proven himself worthy with his one selfless decision.

The Captain – con-man turned hero – had given his life so that others may have the chance to live, and the Doctor couldn't have been more proud of the man… nor indeed more overwhelmed at that moment by the knowledge that he's just lost a very dear and true friend.

He'd suspected that Jack had seen war before, but never like this. The Doctor had heard Jack's plight, listened to the last words of a doomed and dying man, but had known that there was nothing he could do to save him. Jack had been alone, facing a ruthless and merciless enemy… perhaps from the moment he'd left himself and Rose within the control room of the Space Station he'd been doomed to die. He should have got them both out whilst he'd had the chance. But he knew that neither of them would have settled for that. Rose would never have settled for that had she realised the Doctor's true intentions, before he'd locked her in the TARDIS and sent her home, and neither would have Jack.

Then in that moment the Doctor wanted to scream, he wanted to get down on his hands and knees, fists clenched, and curse the very planet he'd been fighting to protect, the very planet which they'd all been fighting to protect, fighting with their lives, that Jack had died protecting. He wanted to wipe every last stinking Dalek out of existence… the race which had not only destroyed his planet, his home, obliterated his people, taken his own family away from him, but now also a close and trusted friend! No truer man had the Doctor ever had travel with him, no lesser hero.

Even though Jack hadn't himself managed to defeat the Dalek's, (single handed that would have been some feat), he'd managed to buy the Time Lord the extra few minutes which he needed in order to finish the Delta Wave, required to finish the Dalek's off!

He'd have to be strong like Jack, go against everything he'd ever believed in! If not he'd let the Captain down, and Jack's death would be in vein! He'd have died for nothing! He owed it to him more than ever now to see this through! After all had this not been his suggestion? Was it not therefore his fault?

As the doors slid open and allowed what seemed to him to be hundreds of Dalek's to glide into the control room surrounding him he saw Jack's face in the reflection of every one of their repulsive weapons which were now aimed in his direction… not that that meant very much to him anymore. He was alone again, with nobody to care, nobody to fight for, and nobody to anguish over either way if he were to win or lose, live or die! But as he looked over at the computer screens submitting the live image feed from deep space, of planet earth itself, he thought of all of the millions of people he would be condemning to death, innocent lives lost through no fault of their own, but by the Doctor's hand – and at that moment he realised that he couldn't do it! He couldn't allow the human race to die! Perhaps they really were better off living their lives as a Darlek than not at all…

…and if this really was the end for him here and now the Doctor would embrace death, and he wouldn't be here to concern himself with picking up the pieces! He was fed up of picking up the pieces, always of someone else's war, when he was always left empty and alone himself by the end of it all! Jack and Rose would be the last two companions he'd ever lose… he'd saved the best for last… the happiest he'd ever been… and at least his memories would remain intact!

He was sorry for Rose, sorry that she'd never know… sorry that neither of them would ever know how much they'd meant to him, how much he loved them. He knew that he didn't have long…

The Dalek's wouldn't keep him talking for much longer… he only had minutes to spare at the most… and in those final last few minutes the Doctor said one last silent and final farewell to a friend!


End file.
